Uber’s in the HAUS

Should Realtors be worried about HAUS?

About a month ago Garrett Camp, co-founder of Uber and CEO of Expa Studios, released Haus, a new digital platform that digitizes the offer submission and acceptance process. Right now the platform is only available in California and free of charge, this might change once the company determines how to improve the “negotiation process.”

In short,  the platform isn’t here to compete with the zillow’s or realtor.coms of the world in an already crowded space of online home search. Rather, Haus’s main goal is to digitize the offer-submission and acceptance process. TechCrunch reported the platform lets “sellers put their listing on the platform, where buyers and their agents can both post their offers, amend them, and see an anomymized version of other offers that have been made on the property.”

Haus, could prove to be a disruptive force in the real estate industry or it could serve to streamline the offering process. Many Realtors fear that this would infringe on their business as quite possibly, For Sale By Owners (FSBO’s) may take to the site to sell their homes as a FSBO. But FSBO’s have been selling online for years on craigslist and other outlets. This may make is more streamlined for the FSBO, but it doesn’t the diminish the experience and knowledge base of a seasoned and professional real estate agent.

Agents should embrace technology , but know that not all apps or online services are created equal. Thus, the onus is on the agent to truly study the  strengths, weaknesses, benefits and disadvantages of each service. Haus, is not different from many other Offer Portal services we’ve seen in the near past ( especially during the REO boom). Haus is sleek and easy to use and it will help to bring some transparency and organization to the offer process, but the agent is still actively involved with the client. As the service stands now, we believe HAUS is another tool for agents to streamline their business. Stay tuned…